english@kkc

Amon Goeth is sadistic and ruthless, and he is the film’s central representation of evil. Goeth finds a sanctioned outlet for his cruelty in the Nazi military and is representative of the mindless evil of the Third Reich and its “final solution.” He views Jews as vermin, creatures unworthy of possessing basic human rights. He kills often and without hesitation or provocation. Unlike Schindler, Goeth never strays into goodness. However, despite the lack of change in his basic nature he is not a one-dimensional character; Goeth is a complicated and conflicted man. Spielberg has chosen to show Goeth as beset by indecision and that at times is tempted to do good (for example in the ‘I forgive you’ sequence), half inclined to give into his humanity (for example, the scene with Helen in the basement) but always choosing to fall back on to the side of evil.
He lusts after his Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch, and the actor Ralph Fiennes skillfully conveys both the strength and ambivalence of this passion. Goeth attempts to seduce Helen, and when she shows no reaction, he turns on her, blames her for trying to tempt him, calls her names, and beats her savagely. Later, when Schindler wants to buy Helen to put her on his list, Goeth refuses. He tells Schindler he will never let her go, that he wants to bring her back to Vienna and grow old with her. Schindler tells him it can never be, and Goeth, demonstrates his conflicting feelings, replies that he would never subject Helen to Auschwitz, but would shoot her in the head, “mercifully,” instead. Goeth’s twisted idea of a merciful end for Helen epitomises both his inner conflict and essential cruelty.
Goeth is presented to the viewer as a man who had to choose between the cruelty he was taught as part of his training and being compassionate and humane. He chose to continue to be cruel and this leads to his death. At the end of the film when he is executed we don’t have unresolved felings towards Goeth because of the inhumanity he demonstrated. The last image we see of him confirms to the viewer that people who sell their souls to gain power and money will not have sympathy when retribution comes.

All of us on the sofa in a line, kneeling
Behind each other, eldest down to youngest,
Elbows going like pistons, for this was a train

Some of you have studied the poetry of Seamus Heaney and will know a little bit about the Irish poet. The poem I am going to focus on in this post is called ‘A Sofa in the Forties’ as it relates to our ‘Schindler’s List’ study. Heaney read this poem at the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration. The poem is set during the war as a family of Irish children play trains on the sofa. The poem juxtaposes the make-believe play of the children with the terror and tragedy of the Jewish people as they are transported across Europe to their deaths.

Read the whole poem here.

The Irish actor Liam Neeson has the features and presence of a film star from the 1940s which made him ideal for the role of Oscar Schindler. Physically the actor cuts a strapping figure that also makes him ideal for larger than life hero roles. However, there is also a vulnerability about him that makes him equally suitable for the role of a sensitive hero, as well.

Neeson brought all of these characteristics to his star-making, Oscar-nominated, performance in Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The film accentuated Neeson’s old-style Hollywood looks by being shot in film noirish black and white. Neeson’s Schindler, who saves the lives of more than one thousand Jews from the extermination by the Nazis, is shady but honest, pragmatic but altruistic—the quintessential noir hero, a man walking a tightrope down some very dark, very mean streets. He is also a man with a desperate need to feel accepted— a typical Spielberg hero.

As we have discussed the real Schindler was an enigma. History still can’t put a finger on the actual motives that prompted him to save the lives of so many of his Jewish employees. Was he a humanist who saw a terrible wrong and did his best to right it? A charismatic conman? Or was he a clever opportunist who saw no profit in sending productive workers to the gas chambers? In fact, does it really matter? What does count is that he did save lives when others in similar positions sat back and did nothing.

For most of the film, Neeson plays Schindler as just such an enigma, a genuine man in the middle—until Spielberg blows the character’s fascinating ambiguity at the conclusion by having him break down in front of the Jews he has saved and despairing at not having been able to save more of them. This is the most criticised scene in the film. Some critics believe that this behaviour is inconsistent with the character Neeson, the screenwriter, and Spielberg have created for us up to this point that they can’t buy in to it. For others it strikes such a false note of strained sentimentality that it weakens Neeson’s performance. Is it his only unconvincing moment in whole film?

One term that you may come across in our study of ‘Schindler’s List’ is anti-Semitism. Throughout history Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination. The word anti-Semitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. The Holocaust, the state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945, is history’s most extreme example of anti-Semitism.

Amon Goeth was born in Vienna, 1908 and he joined the Nazi party in 1932, progressing to the ranks of the Gestapo in 1940. He was originally sent to German occupied Lublin, east Poland, Goeth found a liking for slaughter during the liquidation of the Lublin Ghetto, and so impressed his seniors with his methods that he was promoted to camp commandant of the Płaszów camp in Kraków in 1943. In the same year he supervised the brutal clearing of the Kraków ghetto in Podgórze, as well as the ghetto found in Tarnów. Having found a fondness for accepting bribes during his stint in Lublin he used his position in charge of liquidising ghettos to steal property and valuables confiscated from Jews.

Goeth was often to be found parading around on a white horse and he was notorious for his corrupt nature, heavy drinking and bouts of extreme violence. Several scenes in Schindler’s List never actually occurred however - he never murdered his stable boy (who survived the war), nor was he able to take pot shots at prisoners from his balcony, seeing that his house backed directly onto a hill. Goeth did shoot them from a hill though. In the words of Poldek Pfefferberg, ‘when you saw Goeth, you saw death’. Collective punishment became frequent; torture and death were daily events. Groups passing one another on different work shifts reported the daily number killed. In 1943 on Yom Kippur, an important holiday of the Jewish year, Goeth and his SS-men took 50 Jews from the barracks and shot them. Often prisoners were publicly hung, with more than 15,000 inmates lined up on the ground.

In 1944 he was relieved of his position and charged with theft of Reich property, though Germany’s looming military collapse meant he was never brought to tribunal. Diagnosed with diabetes and mental illness by SS doctors he spent the remainder of the war in a hospital and was arrested by American troops in 1945. Charged with the murder of 2,000 Jews during the evacuation of the Podgórze ghetto, and 8,000 deaths during his time in Plaszów, he was sentenced to death and hanged in Kraków in 1946. Goeth’s mistress Ruth- Irene Kalder remained loyal to him in death, keeping a photograph of him by her bedside until she died. After giving an interview in 1983 she declared him a charming man before choosing to commit suicide the next day.

Time for a laugh? Then watch these people lose it. Keep watching for the Aussie gameshow contestant at the end.

When I use the term ‘characterisation’ what do I mean?

What has the Sphinx got to do with ‘Schindler’s List’ ? Well, if you are thinking about the one in Eygpt, not much really. However, another meaning of sphinx is an enigmatic or mysterious person. The character of Oskar Schindler as interpreted by Liam Neeson is certainly a fascinating and compelling enigma. But what was the real Schindler like?
As a hard-drinking, profiteering playboy, Schindler does not fit the standard mould for a hero, though neither was he the typical Nazi. Credited with saving 1,200 Jews his actions continue to serve as an example and inspiration. However, the question still remains - why did he do it ? No one will ever know exactly what made this complex man do what no German had the courage to do. A large part of the fascination of Schindler is that not even those who admire him most can figure out his motives.

I spent last week at learning @schools in Rotorua and left some relief work that I would describe as a little dry. My Year 12 class gave me a less euphemistic description in the form of Hemingway’s six word novels. I won’t print them here but they were great, a real treat to come back to. Not only did their efforts make me laugh out loud because they were so funny but they gladdened my heart. Using an activity from English to complain - now that’s inspired!

Why, oh why, would that thing ever have been created?